The Phase I effort of this research is to develop a robotic bi-manual therapy machine for use in stroke rehabilitation that will augment the clinical rehabilitation provided by a physical therapist, provide better quantititative data to support rehabilitation decisions and progress review, and to ultimately result in substantial improvements in the speed and quality of recovery from impairments caused by stroke. Current practice in stroke rehabilitation relies almost exclusively on subjective measurements by the physical therapist and the extent to which the ability to perform activities of daily living is recovered. It is expected that the availability of a computer-controlled robotic bi-manual therapy machine will provide revolutionary opportunities for uncovering more fully the nature of stroke and the exploration of new therapies. The desired outcome of the Phase I research effort will be a virtual prototype of a pre- commercial model. This virtual prototype will be evaluated using a six degree of freedom goniometer, and the final model will form the basis of the prototype construction in Phase II. A single degree of freedom bi- manual test bed will be developed and used to evaluate force control algorithms to be implemented in the prototype. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: The commercial applications of this project are the manufacture and distribution of a robotic therapy machine providing clinical rehabilitation of stroke impairment, which is enhanced by computerized assessment and automated routines for remote or networked therapy. This methodology would lead to a more cost effective therapy that could be developed for other forms of rehabilitation therapy.